"The redemption of men from every tribe, tongue, people and race is far from being the whole story of Christ’s work of atonement as John understands it. For he hears the choirs of heaven joined by the voices of the whole creation in a final outburst of praise. This should not be dismissed as mere hyperbole. John knows only too well that there is much on earth and under the earth and in the sea which has no inclination to join in the worship of Christ, and that these hostile elements are represented even in heaven. But such is his confidence in the universality of of Christ’s achievement that his vision cannot stop short of universal response. He agrees with Paul that God has already in the Cross reconciled the whole universe to himself (Col 1:20), and that to make His act of amnesty and reconciliation known to the world is the royal and priestly task of the church, the success of which is already anticipated in the heavenly Amen ". – George Bradford Caird, Senior Tutor of Mansfield College, Oxford
“The true way to be humble is not to stoop till you are smaller than yourself, but to stand at your real height against some higher nature that shall show you what the real smallness of your greatest greatness is.” -Phillips Brooks-
“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”-- Mahatma Gandhi
“The truth is that the gift of eternal life is an insufferable blow to our spiritual pride, because the ego desires at all cost to be able to claim some of the credit for its own salvation. Even in avowedly pantheistic religions this pride sometimes manifests itself in attempt to conceal or soften the fact of union with God. Thus the ego increases the distance between itself and God in order to flatter itself with the thought of bridging that distance by its own efforts. By every conceivable subtlety it ignores the gift of union in order to have the satisfaction of manufacturing its own union with God.” ~Alan Watts
We can do nothing, we say sometimes, we can only pray. That, we feel, is a terribly precarious second-best. So long as we can fuss and work and rush about, so long as we can lend a hand, we have some hope; but if we have to fall back upon God – ah, then things must be critical indeed! - A. J. Gossip-
“It is often remarked by those who oppose the doctrine of universal salvation, that if God is the Savior of all men, then there is no difference between the saint and the sinner, the believer and unbeliever. Those who make this remark, seem to forget, that while God is declared to be the Savior of all men, he is also said to be ESPECIALLY the Savior of the believer. Though it is true, that God is the Savior of all, yet a little more attention would teach you, that all along, in Scripture, there is a salvation held forth as the special property of the believer, in which the unbeliever can have no part or lot. Though all shall be saved with an everlasting salvation, yet the believer alone can enjoy this special salvation”. – Rev. I. D. Williamson
“The difference between the Christian and the non-Christian is not one of salvation. Salvation is given by grace to everyone. Christians are simply those charged by God with a special mission. The meaning of being a Christian is not working at your own little salvation, but changing human history.”. – Jacques Ellul
“My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.”-- Erma Bombeck
“When I am in the cellar of affliction I look for the Lord’s choicest wines.” -Samuel Rutherford-
“Since He looked upon me, my heart is not my own. He hath run away to heaven with it.” - Samuel Rutherford-
“An empty lantern provides no light. Self-care is the fuel that allows your light to shine brightly.”-- Author Unknown
“Be not proud of race, face, place, or grace.” -Samuel Rutherford-
“Millions of hell’s of sinners cannot come near to exhaust infinite grace.” - Samuel Rutherford-
“My dear friend, clear your mind of can’t.” -Samuel Johnson-
“Just a word of advice. Whenever you’re furious with your parents or you think they’re terrible, just remember, you vomited on them and they kept you.”-- John Green
“This is the God of the gospel of grace. A God who, out of love for us, sent the only Son He ever had wrapped in our skin. He learned how to walk, stumbled and fell, cried for His milk, sweated blood in the night, was lashed with a whip and showered with spit, was fixed to a cross, and died whispering forgiveness on us all.”
- Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt out-
“The wise man doesn’t give the right answers, he poses the right questions.”-- Claude Levi-Strauss
“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.” - Samuel Johnson-
"To say that sin, assuming it to be opposed to God, has the power of creating a world antagonistic to God as everlasting as He is, attributes to it a power equal at least to His; since according to this view, souls whom God willed to be saved, and for whom Christ died, are held in bondage under the power of sin for ever; and all this in opposition to the Word of God, which says that God’s Son was “manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil…” --Andrew Jukes, The Restitution of all Things-
“To go on punishing for ever, simply for punishment’s sake, shocks every sentiment of justice. And the case is so much worse when the punishment is really the prolongation of evil, when it is but making evil endless.” -Thomas Allin, Christ Triumphant-
"The almighty maker of souls has various methods of restoring them to the divine image; it is impossible his power can fail; it is impossible for his image to be entirely obliterated; it is impossible that misery, sin, and discord can be eternal! –Alison R. Cockburn-
“Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast – you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.”-- Eddie Cantor
“As long as there is any hate in us we are not ready for heaven, not as long as we’re shutting the golden doors on anyone else…the heavenly banquet cannot begin until we are all there, and I can greet with love…everybody who has caused me pain, and call out a welcome to them all. The heavenly banquet cannot begin until all those whom I have hurt are ready to welcome me, in all my flawed and contradictory humanness… Belief in hell is lack of faith because it attributes more power to Satan than to God…but it is God who has the last word! God is not going to abandon creation, nor the people up for trial in criminal court, nor the Shiites, nor the communists, or the warmongers, nor the greedy and corrupt people in high places, nor the dope pushers, nor you, nor me. Bitter tears of repentance may be shed before we can join the celebration, but it won’t be complete until we are all there.” -Madeleine L’Engle-
"I believe implicitly in the ultimate and complete triumph of God, the time when all things shall be subject to Him and when God will be everything to everyone (1 Cor 15:24-28).
For me, this has certain consequences. If one man remains outside of the love of God at the end of time, it means that one man has defeated the love of God—and that is impossible. Further, there is only one way in which we can think of the triumph of our God. If God was no more than a King or judge, then it would be possible to speak of his triumph, if His enemies were agonizing in hell or were totally and completely obliterated and wiped out. But God is not only king and Judge, God is Father—He is indeed Father more than anything else. No father could be happy while there were members of his family for ever in agony. No father would count it a triumph to obliterate the disobedient members of his family.
The only triumph a father can know is to have all of his family back home again." –Dr. William Barclay-
Thou, O Father, wilt not be angry with thy child because he thought—and tried to bid others to think just and noble things of thee; though, O Savior, wilt not frown at him because he trusted in the infinitude of thy compassion; and thou, O Holy Spirit, whose image is the soft stealing of the dew and the golden hovering of the dove, wilt know that if he erred it was because he fixed his eyes, not on the glaring and baleful meteors of anathematizing orthodoxy, but on the star of Bethlehem and the clouds that began to shine above the coming of the Lord; and that—if perchance he erred—the light which led astray was light from Heaven. –Canon F.W. Farrar, b. 1831
The Spirit of the Lord speaks within my soul and says, “Within the breast of every man is the divine image of God (living God), in whose image and likeness he was made, that sin is a perversion and sickness an imposter, and that the grace and power of God through the Holy Ghost delivers man from all bondage and darkness, and man in all his nature rises into union and communion with God and becomes one with Him the truest sense. –John G. Lake-